Browsing by Author "West, Jessica"
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- ItemOpen AccessFeminist IR and the Case of the ‘Black Widows’: Reproducing Gendered Divisions(2004) West, Jessica; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, AnitaFeminism has been a marginal approach to International Relations (IR) since its inception following the Cold War, however in an effort to reinvigorate its analytical power, Charlotte Hooper demonstrated how the practice of IR actively reproduces as well as reflects gender identities in the form of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of the following study is to challenge and extend Hooper’s argument by investigating whether or not the practice of international relations also produces a hegemonic femininity. By examining the popular portrayal of Chechen women terrorists commonly referred to as the ‘Black Widows,’ I argue that our interpretations of international events do indeed produce a hegemonic femininity that places women in the familial world of emotion and victimhood. In effect, a feminine niche is created for women who partake in traditionally masculine activities. This analysis speaks to two additional controversies in feminist literature: the effect of adding women to andocentric categories and whether or not women’s violence should be represented in feminist theories. The difficulties that feminist encounter with each of these issues is demonstrative of the need to eschew rather than clamour for a position within the strictures of mainstream IR. Instead, feminists should embrace their position on the margins of IR and the opportunity that it provides to destabilizing the hierarchies, exclusions and violence upon which it is based.
- ItemOpen AccessThe Political Economy of Organized Crime and State Failure: The Nexus of Greed, Need and Grievance(2006) West, Jessica; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, AnitaState failure has emerged as a new security threat, however its dynamics are poorly understood as evidenced by our limited insight of its relationship to proximate causes such as organized crime. Most theories of conflict and state failure that incorporate organized crime focus on its ability to finance war and provide economic incentives to sustain instability; however, they ignore the political elements that are present in theories of organized crime. Moreover, it is difficult to discern the difference between crime as a symptom of state failure and crime as an agent of it. The central question posed in this paper concerns how organized crime interacts with the causes of state failure. Applying a political economy analysis to the drug trade in Afghanistan and Tajikistan as case studies, the purpose of the study is to determine whether or not organized crime is a neutral symptom of state failure or if it contributes to the process of disintegration. The findings reveal that organized crime serves as a proximate cause of state failure by feeding off of and reinforcing other causes in a manner that propels weak states towards failure and provides obstacles to the re-establishment of a functional state. This suggests that policy-makers should also approach the problem from a political economy perspective, taking care to isolate the greed aspect of organized crime without exacerbating the legitimate need and grievances of citizens that it exploits and seeks to reinforce. To do so requires an expansion of the traditional toolbox for conflict management beyond traditional military and development instruments to include intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.